In Our Time: Philosophy
by BBC Radio 4
From Altruism to Wittgenstein, philosophers, theories and key themes.
Copyright: (C) BBC 2024
Episodes
Augustine's Confessions
47m · Published
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine of Hippo's account of his conversion to Christianity and his life up to that point. Written c397AD, it has many elements of autobiography with his scrutiny of his earlier life, his long relationship with a concubine, his theft of pears as a child, his work as an orator and his embrace of other philosophies and Manichaeism. Significantly for the development of Christianity, he explores the idea of original sin in the context of his own experience. The work is often seen as an argument for his Roman Catholicism, a less powerful force where he was living in North Africa where another form of Christianity was dominant, Donatism. While Augustine retells many episodes from his own life, the greater strength of his Confessions has come to be seen as his examination of his own emotional development, and the growth of his soul.
With
Kate Cooper
Professor of History at the University of London and Head of History at Royal Holloway
Morwenna Ludlow
Professor of Christian History and Theology at the University of Exeter
and
Martin Palmer
Visiting Professor in Religion, History and Nature at the University of Winchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Sun Tzu and The Art of War
48m · Published
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas attributed to Sun Tzu (544-496BC, according to tradition), a legendary figure from the beginning of the Iron Age in China, around the time of Confucius. He may have been the historical figure Sun Wu, a military adviser at the court of King Helu of Wu (who reigned between about 514 and 496 BC), one of the kings in power in the Warring States period of Chinese history (6th - 5th century BC). Sun Tzu was credited as the author of The Art of War, a work on military strategy that soon became influential in China and then Japan both for its guidance on conducting and avoiding war and for its approach to strategy generally. After The Art of War was translated into European languages in C18th, its influence spread to military academies around the world.
The image above is of a terracotta warrior from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor, who unified China after the Warring States period.
With
Hilde De Weerdt
Professor of Chinese History at Leiden University
Tim Barrett
Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, University of London
And
Imre Galambos
Reader in Chinese Studies at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Cicero
49m · Published
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas developed by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) to support and reinvigorate the Roman Republic when, as it transpired, it was in its final years, threatened by civil wars, the rule of Julius Caesar and the triumvirates that followed. As Consul he had suppressed a revolt by Catiline, putting the conspirators to death summarily as he believed the Republic was in danger and that this danger trumped the right to a fair trial, a decision that rebounded on him. While in exile he began works on duty, laws, the orator and the republic. Although left out of the conspiracy to kill Caesar, he later defended that murder in the interests of the Republic, only to be murdered himself soon after.
With
Melissa Lane
The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University
and 2018 Carlyle Lecturer at the University of Oxford
Catherine Steel
Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow
And
Valentina Arena
Reader in Roman History at University College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Kant's Categorical Imperative
49m · Published
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought to define the difference between right and wrong by applying reason, looking at the intention behind actions rather than at consequences. He was inspired to find moral laws by natural philosophers such as Newton and Leibniz, who had used reason rather than emotion to analyse the world around them and had identified laws of nature. Kant argued that when someone was doing the right thing, that person was doing what was the universal law for everyone, a formulation that has been influential on moral philosophy ever since and is known as the Categorical Imperative. Arguably even more influential was one of his reformulations, echoed in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which he asserted that humanity has a value of an entirely different kind from that placed on commodities. Kant argued that simply existing as a human being was valuable in itself, so that every human owed moral responsibilities to other humans and was owed responsibilities in turn.
With
Alison Hills
Professor of Philosophy at St John's College, Oxford
David Oderberg
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading
and
John Callanan
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at King's College, London
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Plato's Republic
48m · Published
Is it always better to be just than unjust? That is the central question of Plato's Republic, discussed here by Melvyn Bragg and guests. Writing in c380BC, Plato applied this question both to the individual and the city-state, considering earlier and current forms of government in Athens and potential forms, in which the ideal city might be ruled by philosophers. The Republic is arguably Plato's best known and greatest work, a dialogue between Socrates and his companions, featuring the allegory of the cave and ideas about immortality of the soul, the value of poetry to society, and democracy's vulnerability to a clever demagogue seeking tyranny.
With
Angie Hobbs
Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
MM McCabe
Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emerita at King's College London
and
James Warren
Fellow of Corpus Christi College and a Reader in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Roger Bacon
50m · Published
The 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon is perhaps best known for his major work the Opus Maius. Commissioned by Pope Clement IV, this extensive text covered a multitude of topics from mathematics and optics to religion and moral philosophy. He is also regarded by some as an early pioneer of the modern scientific method. Bacon's erudition was so highly regarded that he came to be known as 'Doctor Mirabilis' or 'wonderful doctor'. However, he is a man shrouded in mystery. Little is known about much of his life and he became the subject of a number of strange legends, including one in which he allegedly constructed a mechanical brazen head that would predict the future.
With:
Jack Cunningham
Academic Coordinator for Theology at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln
Amanda Power
Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford
Elly Truitt
Associate Professor of Medieval History at Bryn Mawr College
Producer: Victoria Brignell.
Seneca the Younger
51m · Published
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empire, after the fall of the Republic. He was a Stoic philosopher, he wrote blood-soaked tragedies, he was an orator, and he navigated his way through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, sometimes exercising power at the highest level and at others spending years in exile. Agrippina the Younger was the one who called for him to tutor Nero, and it is thought Seneca helped curb some of Nero's excesses. He was later revered within the Christian church, partly for what he did and partly for what he was said to have done in forged letters to St Paul. His tragedies, with their ghosts and high body count, influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. The image above is the so-called bust of Seneca, a detail from Four Philosophers by Peter Paul Rubens.
With
Mary Beard
Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
Catharine Edwards
Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London
and
Alessandro Schiesaro
Professor of Classics at the University of Manchester
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Hannah Arendt
47m · Published
In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. She developed many of her ideas in response to the rise of totalitarianism in the C20th, partly informed by her own experience as a Jew in Nazi Germany before her escape to France and then America. She wanted to understand how politics had taken such a disastrous turn and, drawing on ideas of Greek philosophers as well as her peers, what might be done to create a better political life. Often unsettling, she wrote of 'the banality of evil' when covering the trial of Eichmann, one of the organisers of the Holocaust.
With
Lyndsey Stonebridge
Professor of Modern Literature and History at the University of East Anglia
Frisbee Sheffield
Lecturer in Philosophy at Girton College, University of Cambridge
and
Robert Eaglestone
Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University London
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality
48m · Published
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morality - A Polemic, which he published in 1887 towards the end of his working life and in which he considered the price humans have paid, and were still paying, to become civilised. In three essays, he argued that having a guilty conscience was the price of living in society with other humans. He suggested that Christian morality, with its consideration for others, grew as an act of revenge by the weak against their masters, 'the blond beasts of prey', as he calls them, and the price for that slaves' revolt was endless self-loathing. These and other ideas were picked up by later thinkers, perhaps most significantly by Sigmund Freud who further explored the tensions between civilisation and the individual.
With
Stephen Mulhall
Professor of Philosophy and a Fellow and Tutor at New College, University of Oxford
Fiona Hughes
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Essex
And
Keith Ansell-Pearson
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Zeno's Paradoxes
46m · Published
In a programme first broadcast in 2016, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Zeno of Elea, a pre-Socratic philosopher from c490-430 BC whose paradoxes were described by Bertrand Russell as "immeasurably subtle and profound." The best known argue against motion, such as that of an arrow in flight which is at a series of different points but moving at none of them, or that of Achilles who, despite being the faster runner, will never catch up with a tortoise with a head start. Aristotle and Aquinas engaged with these, as did Russell, yet it is still debatable whether Zeno's Paradoxes have been resolved.
With
Marcus du Sautoy
Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford
Barbara Sattler
Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
and
James Warren
Reader in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time: Philosophy has 154 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 106:47:27. The language of the podcast is English. This podcast has been added on November 28th 2022. It might contain more episodes than the ones shown here. It was last updated on May 22nd, 2024 04:41.
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